


Pencil Art

by aohatsu



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-20 03:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7388371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aohatsu/pseuds/aohatsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His dad, though, isn’t the man standing next to his mother in the drawing he has now. This man is younger, handsomer, with dark hair that’s a bit too long, and a smile that looks like it isn’t quite… real. Dean stares at it, because he thinks, maybe, this is his birth father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pencil Art

Dean feels the way the black pencil touches the parchment under its tip, feels the way it brushes against the paper like—like wind touches grass during a storm. Sudden, rough, with no control over what gets caught up in it, with what the end product will be.

His fingers shine with the led that’s stained his hands everywhere he’s touched the paper, either on purpose to create shadow and depth and emotion, or on accident, when he needs to get close to create the finest details—the way lips curl in a laugh, the way the fabric of a shirt folds when the person wearing it moves. 

His eyes are rimmed with the color red, because he’s kept them open for so long, so focused on finishing what’s under his hands now that he knows what he wants to draw. Sometimes, he can’t help it; ideas will come, images in his head that have to be put on paper or he’ll just go crazy. Sometimes, his friends will ask, “Dean, can you draw…” and no matter what it is, inspiration is hard to find.

This time, he isn’t sure what it is that he’s drawn.

He knows it’s his mother. Her smile is familiar in the way that Dean knows best, a welcome sight after months and months at school without her, or Dad, or his sisters. But the way he drew her this time is new—she’s young, with short hair, and bright eyes, and a baby in her arms that can’t be anyone but Dean himself.

He’s never drawn a picture of himself as a baby. He’s done self-portraits, of course—back in London, he has a summer art program that he attends, and every summer, one of the assignments is to draw yourself. Sometimes, he’ll make himself seem dashing, a little more colorful and fitter than in real life. Sometimes, he’ll make it as silly as can be—once, he drew himself with a wand, commanding a troupe of dancing tigers. His art teacher had laughed, but his dad had said, “Dean, this is incredible,” in a voice that had made Dean flush all the way to his toes, when he’d cast a little spell that made the tigers move.

His dad, though, isn’t the man standing next to his mother in the drawing he has now. This man is younger, handsomer, with dark hair that’s a bit too long, and a smile that looks like it isn’t quite… real. Dean stares at it, because he thinks, maybe, this is his birth father.

He doesn’t know how it could be. His father had left Dean and his mother when Dean was just a baby, so small that there isn’t a chance Dean could remember what he looked like. His mother didn’t even have any photographs—all she remembered, all she could tell Dean when he’d asked, when he was four and his dad—Russel, before he’d married Dean’s mom—had asked him, “Dean, is it alright if I ask your mother to marry me?” was that the man who’d left them… 

His name had been Will. 

“But I suppose even that,” she’d said with a frustrated frown, her whole body tense, “might have been a lie.” 

All he’d ever done was lie, she’d said. Everything he’d told her, about him, about their life together, about everything they could have… it had all been a lie. He’d gotten her pregnant, and he’d promised to marry her, to keep her safe, to keep their family safe, and then he’d left, and he’d never come back.

But here he was; here, in this drawing. 

Dean might have made him up, maybe making up a base from the face that he sees when he looks in the mirror himself. His father must have been tall, Dean knows. His parents are both shorter than him, and all three of his sisters are small enough that he can pick them up and throw them over his shoulders, forcing them to scream and giggle and threaten him if he didn’t put them back down.

But Dean is tall—tall enough that he’s a whole head taller than Seamus, these days, even though they’d been eye-to-eye when they’d first met on the Hogwarts Express when they were eleven. It’s something he must have gotten from his father, though his mother has never confirmed it.

Admittedly, he’s never bothered to ask. 

She likes to pretend, and so does his dad, that he’d never had a different father, that Russell was his dad from the very beginning. They’ve never treated him differently than his sisters, than a real son. He loves his dad, and his mother—he wouldn’t trade them for anything, so asking about his father… it’s never been that important, not really.

But… then there’s this picture, slowly coming to life under his fingers. The light from the fireplace is starting to fade, everyone else having gone to bed hours ago. There’s class tomorrow—potions and herbology and history of magic. He should be sleeping too.

Instead, he can’t take his eyes off the marks his own pencil has drawn, where this man—his father, even if just in Dean’s head—is looking down at Dean, at the baby in Dean’s mother’s arms, and looks happy, if just a little.

He lets his head fall back against the couch, closing his eyes. It’s possible, of course, that his father gave him something else. Something other than his height, than his cheekbones and his ears.

Maybe he’s just lucky, having magic. There are plenty of muggleborns at Hogwarts. But then again, maybe he’s not. None of his sisters have shown any sign of it, and his parents are both as muggle as it’s possible to be. But his father… He knows nothing about his father.

His father could have been a wizard.

Maybe it could even explain why he’d left. To be part of two different worlds, one of them in the midst of a war. It isn’t an excuse, but he’s thought about it anyway. A reason—a real reason, that his mother had been left, that _he’d_ been left behind.

Harry had found his Dad’s name on a Quidditch trophy in their first year. Ron had told them, because it was interesting, but Dean remembers the awe in Harry’s face. Harry doesn’t know much about his parents either. Maybe Dean could go looking around, and find a _William_ on a trophy somewhere.

But he wouldn’t know if it had been his dad, really, even if he looks at every trophy in Hogwarts.

He sits up, closing his notebook and pressing his pencil back into its case. It’s late, and he needs to go to sleep or he’ll regret it with Professor Snape tomorrow. He glances at the fire, and grips his notebook a little tighter. 

He shouldn’t care this much.

The man had left him and his mother both—clearly, he hadn’t cared about them. 

But if this small drawing is all Dean can have of him, he’s keeping it.


End file.
